World History 2: Science, Environment and Sustainability (HIC1301)

Staff

Dr Richard Noakes - Convenor

Credit Value

15

ECTS Value

7.5

NQF Level

4

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Duration of Module

Term 2: 11 weeks;

Module aims

This module aims to give students a deeper understanding of global history since approximately 1500 via three major interrelated themes: the environment, science and sustainability. It adopts chronological and comparative cultural/geographical perspectives on a range of specific issues such as the representation of nature, industrialization, pollution and environmental politics. It aims to develop students’ skills in fundamental aspects of historical enquiry, including the location, critical understanding and evaluation of primary and secondary source materials, and the written and oral presentation of scholarly arguments.

ILO: Module-specific skills

1. Understand some of the key topics in the global history of the environment, science and sustainability

2. Evaluate key arguments in environmental history, and use primary and secondary sources to achieve this

3. Demonstrate how an understanding of global historical change can inform a more micro-historical approach and vice-versa

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

4. Deploy the basic rules of evidence in historical enquiry

5. Compare and contrast differing historical approaches

6. With guidance, indicate how people have lived, acted and thought in a range of contexts at different times and in a number of locations

7. Indicate some of the complexities of historical change at global scales

ILO: Personal and key skills

8. With guidance, select and digest academic literature relevant to the topic under study

9. Organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument

10. Communicate ideas orally and respond to the arguments of others in an appropriate manner

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Lectures: these provide a spine through which all students can be brought to a similar level of knowledge and through which ideas and controversies can be transmitted.

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities

11

Seminars: these will focus on particular aspects of the subject-matter, with a view to offering a fuller understanding than can be delivered through the lectures, allowing the students to develop their skills and knowledge more fully. Students will be expected to prepare adequately for seminars in advance by reading and evaluating and to discuss the issues raised in the seminar itself.

Guided independent study

128

Private reading for lectures and seminars. Preparation for group presentations and assessed essay or examination